To:G. V. PLEKHANOV

Published:First published In 1925.

      Sent from London to Geneva.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1974,

      Moscow,Volume 34,

      pages123-125.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

December 14, 1902

Therehas been no news from you for quite a time and a lot of business and
questions have accumulated.

Firstof all, about articles forIskra. For No. 30 (No. 29 will come
out tomorrow or the day after) we have Julius’s article “Autumnal
Summing-up”. One more article isessential. How about you?
Please let us know whether you are writing anything and when you are thinking of
sending it, and also about afeuilleton; it would be very good to have
in No. 30 thefeuilletonyou proposed against Tarasov’s
“little
page”.[2]I shall await your reply.

Next,about a pamphlet against the Socialist-Revolutionaries. L. Gr. told me
and wrote to you that it would be best if you undertook it, for you could give,
in addition to “dogmatic” criticism, thehistorical
parallelwith the seventies. I fully agree with L. Gr. that such a
parallel is very, very important; but there is no use, of course, in my even
thinking about it. And in general I should be very glad if you would undertake
this pamphlet. I have little heart for it myself; besides, in addition to
current business, I am now faced with the task of preparing for lectures in
Paris (Julius tells me that they want to invite me there for three or four
lectures on the agrarian question). And so, absolutely everything points to the
pamphlet being your job—it is most definitely needed against the
Socialist-Revolutionaries, who must be picked to pieces. in the most detailed
and thoroughgoing manner. They are awfully harmful to us and our cause. Do
write and tell us your decision.

L.Gr.’s answer toRevolutsionnaya
Rossiya[3]was published
in No. 29: you will receive it towards the end of the week—and you have
already seen the proofs.

Ilearnt today that you will be at the international conference in Brussels
(probably at the end of December or beginning of January[4]) and will
read a lecture there. I hope you will not fail to drop in on us. We are right
next door and the fare will be quite cheap during the holidays. And here,
firstly, your lecture is very badly needed, as there are manyworkershere who are infected with anarchism (I discovered this when I delivered my
lecture on the Socialist-Revolutionaries, which did not interest our people
here[5]). You would certainly be able to influence them. Furthermore,
and this is the chief thing, we have a heap of important subjects to discuss,
especially as regards Russian affairs: the Organising Committee, after long
preparation, has at last been formed there and it can play atremendousrole. It is of the highest importance that we should jointly
reply to awhole seriesof questions which it hasalready
addressed to us(questions concerning measures for uniting the Party,
the agenda,Tagesordnung, at the general congress, what reports there
will befrom us, etc.—extremely important questions in general,
and now of particular significance). Write, please, as to when exactly the
conference in Brussels will be held, how long it will last and whether you will be
able to come here. Further, it may, perhaps, not be out of place if at this
conference you already make use in one way or another of the fact that the
Organising Committee has been set up. Write soon and we shall get in touch with
Russia: we may succeed even in getting some sort of statement or letter from
them addressed to you, if needed.

Doyou see the
Zhiznites[6]? How is the “rapprochement”
with them progressing and what are the chances? And what about theRabocheye
Dyelopeople? You know, I believe it would be a good thing if they too took
part in your “Marxist circle” and if we began (informally) to come
closer to them. It is not worth while these days quarrelling with them, and
there is no reason to, as a matter of fact: by replacingRabocheye
DyelobyKrasnoye
Znamya[7]they have in effect adopted
our plan for “division of literary functions”, and(apart from thesilly“clairvoyant”) there is nothingharmfulin Martynov’s pamphletWorkers and Revolution.

Allthe very best.Yours,Lenin

Asfor the
Bulgarian,[1]I am to blame. I’m sorry. I did not write because
there were no assignments to give, and it did not occur to me that you
would worry.

[1]Unidentified.—Ed.

[2]Thisrefers to Plekhanov’s article against the article by K. Tarasov
(pseudonym of N. S. Rusanov, a Narodnik publicist) published in the
Socialist-Revolutionary journalVestnik Russkoi Revolutsii.

[3]RevolutsionnayaRossiya(Revolutionary Russia)—an illegal
newspaper of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, published in Russia from the
end of 1900. From January 1902 to December 1905 it came out abroad (Geneva)
as the official organ of the S.R. party.

[4]Thisrefers to the forthcoming meeting of the International Socialist
Bureau, which was held in Brussels on December 29, 1902. Plekhanov did not
attend the meeting.

[5]Leninprobably refers to his London lecture of November 29, 1902, on the
subject of S.R. programme and tactics.

[6]Zhiznitesmembers of theZhiznSocial-Democratic group.

(see Note 37). __GLOSSARY_LINK_COMMENT__

[7]KrasnoyeZnamya(Red Banner)—a journal, organ of the
Economists, published in Geneva by the Union of Russian Social-Democrats
Abroad from November 1902 to January 1903 in place ofRabochaya
Dyelo. Three numbers of the journal were published.